Eyvind Kang's Dying Groud & Other Options

This weekend I didn't really go out except for Friday night when I went to see the violinist/guitarist Eyvind Kang at the Community Education Center in West Philly (Lancaster Ave. @ N 34th St.)

Unfortunately the turnout for the avant-garde show by this former Tzadik DIY artist was less than satisfactory. Including myself there were about 10 people. I'm not entirely sure why this was as I'd heard there was a HUGE turnout to the Dave Burell show the previous weekend (which I believe I noted that I slept through). Some of it had to do with lack of name recognition. (Sorry not sure whom to give credit for this photo. If it's yours please let me know).

But before I harp on why people didn't show up, lemme try to approximate the reason I showed up and stayed. The sounds I heard from Kang (whose bio is here) and his band, Dying Ground were entirely heavy and righteous but lacked something to keep me interested the whole time. A surprisingly impressive drummer, G. Calvin Weston (apparently a local stringer), smashed away while (electric) bassist Kato Hideki both violently and calmly strummed away and bowed his thick bass strings.

Weston and Kato sensitively freaked out in response to Kang's insanely loud amplified guitar with numerous effects applied to it. Kang also played amplified violin, the instrument for which he is more known (especially as a member of John Zorn's Cobra). On drums, while maintaining the music's essence, (one of rather simple melodic loudness with immense rhythmic variation), Weston played with a checked intensity. He had the ears of a Chad Taylor or Hamid Drake with the insanely clean yet powerful execution of a Bennink or Blackwell. Something he repeated a couple times through the performance which totally blew my mind was this move where he would be thrashing away at the toms and then all of a sudden whack the sh-t out of the snare and then instantaneously hit both crash cymbals, creating a shocking effect on the ears and the soul. You had to see it to understand what the hell I'm talking about. Perhaps we can get some video up from my new buddy Mark, who took video footage of this show as well as the DeJohnette show I disliked below.

As far as Kang and Kato are concerned, I seem to have lost my notes on their playing but what I recall in the melodies that Kang wrote was a very deliberate chromaticism coupled with strange rhythms that existed independent of the drummer's beat - a deliberate effort to cast off expectability. I felt that we heard too little in the hour and a half Dying Ground played to learn if we were hearing the group at its best but I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed on the whole. Perhaps I'm not into noise and kitsh as much as I used to be. Despite their unique build-up and release of tension and thorough musicality, I just wasn't totally feeling it.

Perhaps Friday's poor turnout had something to do with a slew of other shows competing for my and other people's money the same night or weekend (especially young professionals and students who don't have much cash to spend in the first place.) That night there was also a rather rare performance by Vijay Iyer's quartet at Princeton University (only a 45 minute drive from Center City Philadelphia).

This was the same exciting quartet which the pianist had assembled for his stellar 2005 release Reimagining, (which you can buy CD Universe).(I am going to recommend CD Universe from now on as they consistently seem to have lower prices than Amazon and offer a wider selection of jazz - especially obscure imports).

On the other hand, there had been another Ars Nova show the night before by what I understand was a terrific group called Tone Collector (w/ Eivind Opsvik and Tony Malaby). So if 40 or so people came out to that, perhaps they felt they were doing their part for the week to support creative music or couldn't bring themselves to come out again the following night.

Perhaps it had something to do with the Polish trumpeter and ECM recording artist Tomasz Stanko who was making a very rare US appearance as part of his current East Coast tour in support of Lontano, his latest album on ECM Records. The following night (Saturday 10/21), Stanko would still be at Chris' and Willie Rodriguez and the Bronx All Stars would be playing at the Painted Bride Arts Center in Old City which would be attracting any residual XPN listeners who might otherwise check out some "trippy" music rather than drinking box wine and dancing with their bland partners to salsa music. I shouldn't hate on the Bronx All Stars because the players are cats I respect, but I really feel no remorse in hating on the XPN crowd.


The fragmentation the music community is a lamentable thing but you can't really blame people for differences in aesthetic taste. It's just difficult to program anything when you've got competition on the same night.

Oh well. Comments? I want to see them. I know you're looking at this blog.

attempt to make posts more coherent

I have noticed that I've posted a lot of entries with grammatical errors, run-on sentences and other stupid ramblings. I guess I'd like my loyal readership to know that I am sorry.

From now on, I will be trying to post more coherent entries so that your ready.

DeJohnette/Frisell/Harris

I never thought I'd see Jack DeJohnette at the World Cafe Live in Philadelphia but when you unleash the powers of Bill Frisell's booking agent, The Rosebud Agency (possibly one of the oldest websites I've ever seen), anything is possible.

It was sort of an abbreviated set for me, as I awoke from a nap which prevented me from going to the Ars Nova concert I had really wanted to go to at I-House (Dave Burrell, Reggie Workman, Rashied Ali, Muhammad Ali).

Anyways, Frisell was bluesy and generally OK, DeJohnette sounded disturbingly uninspired on the drums (or perhaps simplistic) except when he sang the blues on the encore , Harris the quiet but powerful melodist (is that a word?). An unlikely highlight, seeing Jerome Harris for the first time was the best part for me. Sure it's Harris entered my consciousness fairly recently as the bassist of a recent Paul Motian record called Garden of Eden. His McFerrin-like vocalizations over DeJohnette's emotive Korg piano on which he played endless alterations on two basic arpeggios.

Really underwhelming on the whole. Wish I'd gone to see Burrell/Workman/Ali/Ali. Maybe once I hear the bootleg I'll change my mind.

troubled by Branford & things to come

As many of you probably saw, the New York Times' Ben Ratliff published what I've heard may very well be the last of his "Listening With..." series. This time around the focus was less on listening to records and more about spreading the pedantic generalizations the outspoken saxophonist Branford Marsalis rattled off to Ratliff at an intimate interview at the saxophonist's North Caroline home.
From the caption: Branford Marsalis has enjoyed great productivity as an alto saxophonist and bandleader since moving to Durham, N.C., five years ago. “I just want to play,” he said. “I don’t want to be in magazines.”

Marsalis said some very harsh things and only chose to listen to recordings pre-1955 and no real bebop or post-bop at that, let alone the Coltrane he is clearly trying to approximate on his latest album, Braggtown. Unfortunately, I tended to agree with most of the "damaging" comments Marsalis uttered.

Soon to come, a multi-show review of this week's shows put on by local Philly avant-garde concert presenter Ars Nova Workshop. Last night was Brotzmann-Bennink playing duo. Tonight George Lewis & Matana Roberts play Houston Hall, which I believe is the Student Union at UPenn. The week continues with a performance by a band being billed as The Philadelphia Four: Dave Burrell, Reggie Workman, Rashied Ali, and Muhammad Ali (yes, the drummer with the same Arabic name as Cassius Clay is apparently still alive).

Look forward to some great shots courtesy of Cadence/Jazz Improv Magazine freelancer Ken Weiss, along with my reviews.

Now listening to Donald Harrison - The Survivor (Nagel Heyer 2068). Buy this album at iTunes by clicking the iTunes link below.

current reading

Check out the Bag's tribute to Bill Dixon on his birthday. Very timely Marc and Derek. For some killer photographs that seem to be copy-protected, check out DMG.
Also, see Mwanji's concert review of Soweto Kinch playing in Belgique as well as his slightly more recent rebuttal of Darius Brubeck's scathing appraisal of Ornette Coleman.


















Finally, from the land of 10,000 lakes, a hilarious
situation from the boys at Do The Math.

Two Trios

Last night I saw Jason Moran and the Bandwagon and The Bad Plus at the Blue Note. They say the Blue Note is a tourist club. Boy are they right! There were so many people standing in line who had literally no idea who they were going to see. All they knew was that their tour books had directed them there - many Americans but also many Japanese as the Blue Note is a much more recognizable brand in that country (multiple locations exist throughout the country - in Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and of course Tokyo.

It was my first time seeing a show at the famed "Blue Note" since in the past their line-ups have seemed slightly less than impressive. Some call it pandering to the masses. Others call it staying in business. But I have to commend their programming for the month of September - all actual jazz acts. Wish I'd been up last weekend to see Scofield's trio with Steve Swallow and Bill Stewart. I'm still waiting for another album from them. Given Sco's new freedom from an exclusive label contract, maybe they'll do it on Swallow's XtraWatt label (a subdivision of ECM which he, Carla Bley, Michael and Karen Mantler and a couple others record on). It would probably have to be a Swallow date comparable to the situation where Swallow took a trio through Europe in 2002 and documented his work with Chris Potter and Adam Nussbaum on Damaged in Transit (2004).

Anyways, both bands played their asses off. Moran is an intense cat and The Bandwagon (which consists of Tarus Mateen on electric bass and Nasheet Waits on drums) is equally focused. There were definite highs and lows - dynamically, rhythmically, and stylistically. Moran is perpetually in the moment; reacting to everything including the noises of shaken martinis and clanging dishes. But particularly impressive are his bursts of furious right hand flights which not only boast technique but point to the beat subdivisions going on in his head.

The program began with Moran Tonk Circa 1936" from the 2001 album Modernistic. I believe that was followed by "Arizona Landscape" or "He puts on his coat and leaves..." from the new album, Artist in Residence (which came out Sept. 12).

Mateen is sort of an enigma. He is a guy I don't really get despite having llstened to this group for some time. It's not that I don't like his playing, which I do. It's just a bit too unstructured and incongruent for me to understand. Very infrequently does he play a groove except maybe on Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" which they played followed by a seamless segue into "Moon River" ("Planet Rock" was also recorded on Moran's solo album Modernistic).

For the rest, which I take it was essentially the same every night, see Darcy's appraisal which is far better than anything I could write now (not having taken notes).

So yeah. That's all I feel like writing about this event. However, that night that I was there I finally got to meet my fellow blogger, Ethan, who told me he'd be taking JaMo back to his dressing room to talk music for his blog. And that they did.

Globe Trotters: Rob Mazurek & Sao Paolo Underground

I had meant to make this post the night of the show, but I got home and forgot all about it.

I don't know if I've blogged about an Ars Nova show yet, but this past Wednesday night myself and a group of about 30 other people gathered in an unassuming black box-like theater. We sat in bleacher-like seating in dingy chairs and watched magic occur between a group of musicians that have come together as a result of one man's journey to find a new musical voice (perhaps a new life) in the Brazilian jungle.

Of course I'm speaking of the now-esteemed Chicago-born quasi-avant-straight-ahead trumpeter Rob Mazurek. His current project moves the spirit, moves the torso, taps the foot, and generally fucks you up.

Despite arriving about 10 minutes late, the set hadn't started. The band was aligned in a very specific manner: drum set up front on the far left (from the audience's vantage point). To his left was a cat playing various samples and distortion/feedback boxes. To his left and slightly forward was a seated Mazurek with an array of mutes and feedback/effects pedals at his feet. And finally to Mazurek's left was another drum set who also had an Apple iBook laptop directly next to his hi-hat so he could program beats (it was my impression). It appeared it was this 2nd drummer's job to keep the flow of the set going as his computer housed the basis of their set.

The concert was ultimately an experimental yet funky and generally moving affair. Mazurek has a strange yet refreshing tendency to hint at the avant-garde while momentarily dipping in and out of straight-ahead playing a la Freddie Hubbard. However while he's playing his trumpet, the rest of the band has the listener fully enrapt in a trance as they rock out over dub and hip-hop grrrroooves punctuated by the occasional solo cadenza by the bearded (and on this night red-shirted) Mazurek.

It was the most fun shooting the shit with the band members and Mazurek after the show. I made my best attempt to impress everybody with my musical knowledge, like the show-off I tend to be. Rob was a really chilled out dude; very casual. When I walked up to him, I introduced myself as the guy who tried to book him in Pittburgh and he remembered me. So I mentioned the Invisible Jukebox which ran in the June 2006 issue of The Wire. We talked about how he correctly identified Lee Morgan from The Last Session (Blue Note 1973) and about how a couple days earlier after the Guelph Jazz Festival the band went back to Dixon's home in Bennington, VT and Rob had asked the elder trumpeter if he had any copies of the renowned 6-CD collection of
of solo works, also known as Odyssey.

Dixon answered, "We only have one copy of Odyssey here....I guess the Odyssey goes to Rob." Dixon charged Mazurek zero dollars.

Speaking of Merch, the band had sold out of all copies of its latest CD, Sauna: Um, Dois, Tres.

Anyways, I think that about sums it up....Oh, I also met a middle-aged hippie woman named Linda who asked me for info on ProTools and I ended up driving home. Random, I know.

Rob called me the next day at work hoping to hook up and see my boss' record collection, but the reception was shitty and we got cut off. Sorry Rob. Until we meet again, it was a pleasure. Your music rocks.

Also, Guilherme, you owe me a CD! Don't worry. I am going to purchase the album

SEE SPU LIVE:
Go see the Sao Paolo Underground in Mazurek's native Chicago at the World Music Festival on September 20.


Sao Paulo Underground features:
Mauricio Takara, drums/percussion/electronics (the guy on the right)
Richard Ribeiro, drums/percussion (the guy on the left)
Gulherme Granado, samplers/percuscion/voice (the dude in the middle to Rob's left)
Rob Mazurek, cornet/electronics (well, its not hard to pick out Rob).

Rob Mazurek's annoyingly cubist website.
If you get discouraged with the navigation, try this.
Strangely, Rob Mazurek is strangely on MySpace. Go figure.

Now listening to: RJD2 - F.H.H. from Deadringer. Buy it at

Six Degrees of Separation

I first got turned on to drummer Ted Poor when my boy BK brought guitarist Ben Monder's group to the Underground at CMU. I was charged with taking care of the band and overseeing things at the show since BK ended up having to miss the show as he was in the pit orchestra for a local musical theater production. So that Thursday in April 2005, I picked up Monder, Theo Bleckmann, Kermit Driscoll, and Ted at their hotel; brought them to the CMU campus; down to the radio station where I taped an interview that never actually aired to my knowledge (props to Matt Toups for producing it). So that night the band was to perform at the Underground and like I said I was in charge of things.

Anyways the gig was very poorly attended due to it being booked on a Thursday and the fact that BK did very little advance publicity. Only a handful of guitar freaks showed up (mostly non-CMU affiliated cats either in high school or local musicians). It was a terrific show - as if I were sitting hearing this great band in Brooklyn or the Village - but in Pittsburgh at the most awkward venue on campus and possibly in all of Pittsburgh...

Anyways, since then I've seen Ted in a variety of different settings - with Ben Monder and singer/songwriter Rebecca Martin (who is married to bassist Larry Grenadier - they play together in the latest incarnation of Paul Motian's Trio 2000 + One), and with the extremely underrated pianist David Berkman on a live recording session at Smoke back in August of this summer.

At one point this summer, late one night at home in Philly while on my computer, I read about this group (The Respect Sextet) in a review on AllAboutJazz.com. The Respect Sextet had its start in Rochester where its members were students at the Eastman School of Music. It was a review of their performance this June at the Rochester International Jazz Festival - a festival that has grown immensely in stature in the last 3 years. Now, all but one of them are in NYC toughing it out on the jazz scene. Who knows if NY with wear them down or whether they will weather the storm finding jobs as they come along. It's always a gamble with that city...


Anyways, when I saw Ted in August we discussed the band and now (roughly 3 weeks later) my new buddy DJA is posting about them on his blog. And now that I think of it, I met Darcy that night before I went uptown to see Ted with Dave Berkman. Crazy!

My conclusion: This jazz world we live in is very small. There are at most three degrees of separation between myself and every young musician in NY under the age of 30. Everybody knows everybody and I guess MySpace and Facebook "help" these random events to occur. I find myself fortunate to know about musicians like Ted Poor, who despite his name is a fantastic musician, composer, and guy.

My inspiration for this post. Respect.

Now listening to: The Joe Lovano Ensemble - Fire Prophet - Part IV from Streams of Consciousness (Blue Note 2006)

Chris Potter 2006 Online Lessons Project

So I hate to post another thing about CP so soon after mentioning him in my Sunday post, but I have to comment on his latest update to his website.

Not so revolutionary now that we've become familiarized with the ArtistShare model, Potter is now offering downloads and streaming content discussing the process of composing, improvising over, and recording Traveling Mercies (2002), Lift (2004), as well as his approach to playing the Jerome Kern standard All the Things You Are.

I think it's terrific if somewhat overdue (i.e. the only change in the website since it launched in late 2004 besides tour dates). You can't really fault the guy. I mean, he's constantly on tour, composing, rehearsing his band, or just relazing between all the above.

Lucky for saxophonists and musicians worldwide, Potter had some time this summer to sit down with ArtistShare creator/technological facilitator Brian Camelio and talk about the inspiring music on these previous albums.

No word yet on whether these sections will actually be updated biweekly as the participant offers claim, but all we can do is hope for the best.

Also don't be fooled by the dates on the main page (namely the "upcoming dates" section) which Chris regularly updates. If looking on the top navigation bar, click on "Events" for the same information. Someone really should show him how to update the main page to reflect that he has made changes to the tour dates so its more obvious to people who look at the site.

Now listening to Gnarls Barkley - Who Cares from the album St. Elsewhere (Atlantic 2006). Buy it.

....I missed the Dewey Redman train.....

This past week I deleted everything in my MacBook's iTunes library with the genre "Jazz."

Why would Dr. Jazz Ph.D do such a thing? Well, I could say it was a cleansing of sorts but I'd be lying. The reality was that my MacBook kept coming up with error messages saying "Startup Disk Almost Full" and it was freezing up programs left and right.

Here I was, back where I'd been all the past year and a half since living with only 40GB of space on my one broken iBook G4. This time around though, I'd transferred everything I had on the old iBook to this MacBook as well as the iMac I bought along with this new MacBook to celebrate my graduation from college (thanks Mom & Dad). The iMac and the MacBook were holding everything I had ripped and/or downloaded from the Pittsburgh years plus everything I'd ripped since I got into Philadelphia town.

Thus I had a redundant system. A couple albums that were on the MacBook weren't on the iMac and vice versa but I had a problem and it needed fixing, so I deleted the bulk of the drive (i.e. all my music tagged as jazz), and tried to start anew with the bootlegged stuff that I hadn't bothered tagging with a genre and the random assortment of other types of music I listen to.

I was left with a mess (my recent rotation).

Some Sufjan Stevens tracks I'd just legally downloaded from iTunes, a bunch of Aceyalone (with various projects), Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, an Ahmad Jamael track, a bit of Ella Fitzgerald I hadn't tagged "jazz" or was tagged something ridiculous like "alternative/punk," several albums and singles produced by RJD2, a shit ton of music by the avant-rock group The Residents and a smorgasboard of other stuff.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



You're probably wondering at this point what the fuck this post has to do with Dewey Redman. Right?

Well, a couple days after I deleted all my music - Dewey Redman died. This week I must have read 15 tributes to Dewey Redman in addition to all the threads going on at AAJ, Organissimo, JazzCorner. I found out before many as I happened to be chatting with Margaret Davis (who is Henry Grimes' partner and manager). "We lost Dewey last night," was the way she broke it to me Sunday morning in the midst of bemoaning the dwindling number of original jazz masters alive today. Note: We were strategizing about bookings this November for Henry, Roy Campbell Jr. and Chad Taylor (three quarters of the Spiritual Unity band - apparently leader Marc Ribot will only be on the Philly and NY dates).

It was only when I went to my CD and LP collection that I realized not only did I not have anything with Dewey Redman as a leader, but I couldn't find a thing with him as a sideman either. I must have heard him or played him sometime on the radio in the jazz journey of my life, but I'll be darned if I could describe what he sounded like or pick out any of his tunes... Thus, somehow, some way i missed the Dewey Redman train. I was on his son's proverbial "train" from his debut on Warner Brothers. But I always knew Josh was his dad's foil - a much straighter player.

It really goes to show you how players and listeners of my generation can know so little about the music of the elders because of all of the media attention goes to the young kid (in this case Josh) whose technique in all registers wove circles around his dad Dewey. But do these acrobatics necessarily make him the better player?

Well certainly more exciting for a young sax player to listen to. I wouldn't have "gotten" Dewey based on Ethan's description as a young player.


My past insistence that Chris Potter is the funkiest mainstream sax player of all time is proof positive of the limitations in my listening experience. The fact is that while Potter may be one of the most exciting players with music readily available for me to listen to, he is one player within a very small time compartment jazz history.



I recently learned that Eddie Harris (an woefully unsung cat) did a lot of the same stuff that Potter has been doing, but I just hadn't gotten around to listening to Harris' stuff both because my peers weren't talking to me about it, and because I just hadn't been willing to sample some of the greater earlier post-Coltrane tenor playing.

There are tons of other cats out there. Old and young. Obscure and famous....that are playing music just as vibrant and relevant as Chris'. I really think that the lesson learned here is that it can't hurt to take a step back from what the magazines and our close friends tell us to dig on, and look back to earlier periods as well as the current scene for what it really is: a diverse mix of concepts and musical sensibilities.

Maybe by erasing all my "new modern jazz" from the computer, I am getting a fresh start and will be able to focus more on the predecessors to Chris Potter, Josh Redman, Mark Turner, and Seamus Blake, etc. This will make some critics of my listening tendencies very happy and I do actually think I'll benefit from a change in my listening regimen.

But the following bloggers straightened things out for me on Dewey. And there were so many recordings referenced that I've got my collecting work ahead of me for years to come.

Do The Math has a very lucid appreciation of the man, his music and his essence. Also, Marc Medwin (Bagatellen), Pat (visionsong), Aldon Lynn Nielsen (HeatStrings), David Ryshpan (Settled In Shipping), Mac (Portastic), Destination Out, DJ Matt Durutti (Los Amigos De Durutti), etnobofin, the NYT (Ratliff), the UPI, Washington Post and the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Now listening to: Brad Mehldau - Wave/Mother Nature's Son (Largo - Warner Bros 2005)

David Weiss @ FatCat Tonight & Every Wednesday Night

Fat Cat
presents
David Weiss and the Point of Departure Quintet

David Weiss- Trumpet
J.D. Allen- Tenor Sax
Nir Felder- Guitar
Luques Curtis- Bass
Jamire Williams- Drums
Kendrick Scott- Drums (August 30)

Fat Cat
75 Christopher Street
(between 7th Avenue and Bleecker Street)
(212) 343-0612
www.Fatcatjazz.com
Wednesday August 30
Shows at 10 pm and 12 midnight
$10 Cover with this invite
http://www.davidweissmusic.com/
http://www.myspace.com/davidweisssextet


Go see this killin' band tonight (Wednesday August 30) in Greenwich Village (subway: 1/2 to Christopher Street) if you are in NY. I will post more info in a bit. Gotta run....

Fat Possum Records documentary on IFC

Fat Possum is a blues and indie rock label that was started by some white dudes who loved the music of the Mississippi Delta and wanted to record some of the last remaining original players who had never left Mississippi to pursue any kind of careers in the music industry. Now their roster includes such lame indie rock acts as The Fiery Furnaces and The Black Keys (whose latest album is covers of Junior Kimbrough's music, one of the original Delta blues artists on the label - now deceased).

Now these musicians are old uneducated black men, many of whom can't read or write so having them sign a record contract is a bit dubious to say the least. But the documentary I saw on IFC, You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen (2003) (produced and directed by Mandy Stein), gives you the impression that the guys who started the company are not in it for the money. They want to expose new audiences to the music of these guys by pairing them up with remix producers and punk bands like Blues Explosion to make the music more accessible and palatable to young people. I think its a noble mission.

Anyways, check out Fat Possum Records' website. And check your local listings for IFC on the right side of the page in the second search box from the top here.

Esperanza Spalding; Doug Ramsey - Rifftides mentions The Jazz Clinic!!!

So tonight by phone, I introduced the amazing Esperanza Spalding (Full Discloser: a client of mine) to the world of Last.fm, which readers of this blog know I'm crazy about. But I'm also crazy about Esperanza's music. The title of this entry links to her Last.fm artist page and if you all could go and vote on the picture of her I posted so that it can go up, I would appreciate it. Of course, you'll have to sign up for an account but it's totally free for the basic service. For the price though that I've paid, I've been turned on to so many new artists to me as well as music by artists I already knew, just hadn't heard the specific albums.

Check out Esperanza's music on the Esperanza Spalding Myspace Page that I created for her. She melds bass and vocals fluidly to produce a uniquely indentifiable sound which draws heavily on spontaneous creativity and soulfulness. I mean, I don't want to take this space to rant about my clients but I do want you all to hear her music.

And if anyone has a 2-month sublet available in New York, I might know someone looking for a place for September and October.

Thanks to Doug Ramsey for linking to my blog. This probably means more people are reading now and I'll have to professionalize my blog a little bit and post about my personal life elsewhere...get a livejournal account....and really focus on jazz for this blog.

Anyways, to continue with a tradition I have, I will leave you with the music I'm currently listening to right now.

Currently listening to: Maria Schneider Orchestra - Começar de Novo (featuring a stunning soprano sax solo by Tim Ries) off of the recently released Days of Wine and Roses: Live at the Jazz Standard.

George Garzone - The Fringe in New York

This album is absolutely sick! Garzone is basically Joe Lovano without press. He's the cat who everyone at Barklee has shedded off but cats don't talk about when listing their influences. To give you an idea, here is a track from this album. Let the music do the convincing.

I can't figure out the hosting stuff right now. So just listen at the outlets below.

The Fringe In New York

George Garzone
NYC Records

• Buy at iTunes Music Store


• Buy at Napster


• Buy at eMusic

• Download "Slip + Slide" (MP3, 192kbps)

Jimmy Greene Quartet @ Smoke Aug. 18-19, 2006

Here is my pick for THIS COMING WEEKEND:

August 18-19, 2006
Jimmy Greene Quartet appearing at Smoke
3 sets per night at 8 PM, 10 PM, & 11:30 PM

(From left to right): drummer Eric Harland, Jimmy Greene, bassist Reuben Rogers, and pianist Xavier Davis) Note: On the far left of this picture is drummer Eric Harland who appears on Jimmy's latest recording True Life Stories (Criss Cross Records). Eric will be replaced by Greg Hutchinson on this gig as he is on the road with saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Everyone else in the picture is on this weekend's gigs.

Jimmy Greene - saxophones
Xavier Davis - piano
Reuben Rogers - bass
Greg Hutchinson- drums

Jimmy, who grew up being mentored in his native Hartford by Jackie McLean should be most well-known as the 2nd Place winner of the 1996 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition for saxophone, but is actually better known as a member of the Tom Harrell Quintet, the Harry Connick Jr. Big Band, Claudia Acuna's quintet, and drummer Lewis Nash's band.

For more info, visit Smoke's website.

Visit Jimmy online here.

Smoke is located at 2751 Broadway (between 105th and 106th streets) New York, NY 10025.

The phone number is (212) 864-6662.

Michael Brecker

Brecker is feeling better these days after a partial marrow transplant from his daughter. You can read more about that here. (on his MySpace page of all places!).

I was so happy to hear about his surprise appearance onstage at Carnegie Hall during the JVC Jazz Festival with Herbie! The last time I saw him live was on the 2nd Directions in Music tour with Herbie, Roy Hargrove, Terri Lynne, Scott Colley in Pittsburgh.

Brecker, thought his vibrato can drive me up walls, was a major source of inspiration to me as a saxophone player. Growing up and hearing the overtones he does on "Two Blocks From the Edge" totally changed how I looked at the possibilities on the saxophone. he man definitely got me through some rough shit in high school. Granted, there are like 3 or 4 people on Earth can touch Brecker technique-wise and those who read this blog know who at least one of those people is. I shouldn't have to say it.

But, man, only Brecker can do Brecker. He is so ridiculous and when he is in the groove with an adventurous rhythm section he can swing like a crazy M-F. JESUS! Listen to him play Oleo here way back in 1983 (the year I was born!):



For those of you wanting to see some newer rare Michael Brecker ish from before he got sick, here you go (I have no clue who that pianist is that they show on camera) but this is one of the definitive songs that changed my life:



If you didn't see it go pick up the June issue of JazzTimes at a library or music store or just purchase a pdf online (I have done so before) which ran a cover story of anecdotes from the jazz community on Michael Brecker and what he means to so many cats.

Ok. Going to bed thinking about how amazing Michael Brecker is. Thank God for Michael Brecker and we all continue to pray for his speedy recovery. Jews out there: Say a Mishebeirach for Michael Brecker if you are at a shul in the next few days or weeks! I wonder what Michael's Hebrew name is? Maybe someone can find that out and post it as a comment.

Apple commercials

Disclaimer: this post has nothing to do with jazz.

So after having seen the original Mac vs PC commercials, I got hipped somewhere in the blogosphere to go check out the spoofs of these witty Apple commercials. By the way, I wonder whose job it is to dream up these commercials. I know Google hires these "creative" people whose job it is to simply dream up this shit. Perhaps Apple does the same? Probably. They can afford it.

Here are some of the originals:










Despite some horribly bad-looking actors and screw-ups in dialogue, some of these things are insanely funny and had me ROTFLMAOing (or should that read RingOTFLMAO?). Anways, here are some YouTube vids of my favorite spoofs:









Anyways....got some more posts in the works right now (something about supermarkets, something about Michael Brecker, and something coming up about Robin Eubanks). And a PODCAST from me will be coming very soon as I gather good audio content with not just my own voice!

Chris Potter on YouTube!

Finally. A video of saxophonist Chris Potter with his own band to satiate my unending urge for new bootlegged Chris Potter. Can't wait to see this band again. I was looking IMN World's site and apparently they are coming to Philadelphia (Chris' Jazz Cafe) in February of 2007. But I'll have to go up to NY before then. Meanwhile I think I'll enjoy his albums and these two videos which another fan seems to have clandestinely taped with the camera under his table in the front row of the Jazz Standard in NY.

doofus

woke up around 1:30 PM, started with the computer, talked to my dogg about JAMO and his blind date through Match.com, did my duty, got in the shower (with my glasses on), glasses fell off while shampooing, didn't worry about it, finished shower refreshed ready for a new day, crouched down to pick up glasses, found one lens and frames, other lens must've gone down the drain, SOL, looking at screen with left eye shut, guess I have to hobble to the closest pharmacy....(thanks google maps)

As Mindy of Animaniacs might have said, "Lens go down the hohhhl."

now listening to: Tim Hagans - "Are You Threatening Me (Kingsize Remix) off of Phonography (on newly updated Last.fm "recommendations radio" player).

fragments of a day

did the jazz clinic, trained to NYC, had meeting at blue note, shopped for expensive menswear, realized I left my MacBook at Blue Note, met agata, bought a TimeOutNY, chatted on a park bench, checked email on a park bench, agata left me, went to catch pianist michael weiss at the kitano hotel, a japanese destination in midtown, came to to the conclusion that steve wilson, the saxophonist, is an insane man. the guy is incredible, talked to kendrick scott of terence blanchard's band who was reading for michael's drummer chair and was masterfully sublime, chatted for a while about the biz, headed downtown to see if I could catch some of monder w/ rebecca martin at FatCat (who I keep wanting to call Kate McGarry because in my mind they sound similar, but in reality don't at all). what a bizarre place. pool tables, checkers, Mac minis, ping-pong courts, and live jazz behind mystery door #1? ok..... lost my wallet, found it, checked email, charged my MacBook, cabbed across to East Village, waited for Siffert to call me back, drank framboise in a bar called Burp Castle (which by the way had a stellar selection of imported bottles) with WRCT friends Anthony, Matt, and Matt's girlfriend Jen, took a cab to the Bronx for $35, found nothing to eat in Anthony's fridge, dranks some OJ, plugged in the laptop, entered the WEP key, tried to send email, failed, fell asleep writing this post....

now listening to: John Fahey's "The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death" as inspired by the feature appreciation in the June issue of The Wire